


Never know how much I love you, Never know how much I care

by Fluffypanda



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Advanced Idea Mechanics (Marvel), Established Relationship, Lack of Communication, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Self-Esteem Issues, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28304667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffypanda/pseuds/Fluffypanda
Summary: Steve and Tony just started dating and everything is perfect...right?
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 72
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	Never know how much I love you, Never know how much I care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geekymoviemom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekymoviemom/gifts).



> Title comes from the song "Fever" because I like to pretend I'm clever. 
> 
> I hope you like it, geekymoviemom!
> 
> Thank you to erawebuilt, tar and alleykat94! I wouldn't have finished this without you!

“Their defenses are focused on the south side.” Steve gestured to the hologram projected over the mugs of lukewarm coffee and the napkins covered in crumbs scattered across the conference table. “So we come in here, just north of –”

“Hachoo.”

“Bless you.” Steve blinked over at Tony, who was wiping his nose. It was the third time Steve had heard Tony sneeze since they woke up this morning. “Are you okay?”

Tony sniffled, looking a bit annoyed. “What? Fine. A few sniffles won’t knock a normal human out of play, Cap. You might want to get on with the plan. Thor’s eyes are glazing over.”

“The Captain has my full attention,” Thor objected, midway through a yawn.

Tony raised his eyebrows at Steve. _See?_

Steve smiled and pulled his attention back to the battle plan. “Right, well, we’re gonna hit them here and take out the power generators. Tony, you’re our lead on that. Thor, you cover him.”

Tony nodded. “Think you can keep up with me, Goldilocks?”

“It will be my pleasure,” Thor declared with a wide grin.

Steve turned to Natasha and Clint. “I want the ground team to start looking for the holding cells. We don’t know what AIM wants with those missing people, but we need to get any survivors out of there ASAP.”

Nat and Clint nodded to each other, and Clint replied, “You got it, Boss.”

“Sam, you’re with me. We’re gonna track down Dr. Morbius.”

Sam crossed his arms. “Always wanted to fight a mad scientist with freaky vampire powers. Where the hell do they find these guys? Is there a convention?”

“It’s a support group: ‘so you experimented on yourself and became a monster.’ We meet on Thursdays,” Bruce joked, not entirely managing to cover up his discomfort. Steve made a note to check in on him later. “I trust I’ll be on standby?”

“We’ll call a Code Green if we need you. Any questions?” Steve looked around at the rest of the table, forcing himself not to linger on Tony. “Suit up!”

As the team began to file out, Steve couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss Tony on the cheek. He could do that now. Tony actually liked him! It still felt unreal. Sometimes he had to pinch himself to prove he didn’t just dream up Tony asking him on a date.

“For luck,” he mumbled as he struggled not to blush. Maybe he was pushing it too far too soon, He wasn’t sure how serious Tony was about all this. He turned to escape before Tony could razz him too badly for it.

Tony caught his sleeve and pulled him down for a kiss. “God, you’re so sappy. If we’re gonna do this, you might as well give me a real kiss.”

Steve’s heart jumped at the press of Tony’s lips against his. Smiling, he whispered, “You don’t like sappy?”

“I plead the fifth,” Tony said, trying and failing to disguise a fond look. Then he squeezed Steve’s butt. “Now go get this ass of yours into spandex while I slip on something a little more metallic.”

“You’re incorrigible.” Steve shook his head and jogged off to the locker room.

  
  


Sam and Clint offered distracted greetings as they buckled on their armor when Steve made it to the locker room. They’ve streamlined the process as much as possible because having to face down twenty Hydra agents while still trying to pull up your pants isn’t exactly fun, but fully suiting up could still take several minutes. With that in mind, Steve pulled out his uniform.

“So you and Stark, huh? I thought Nat was messing with me,” Sam said after a few seconds.

“Is it that strange?” The relationship was so new that he really hadn’t had a chance to talk about it with Sam. It was just a couple of dates so far. It felt like if he said anything that it might jinx it.

Sam shrugged. “You and Stark were always weird around each other, but I can’t say I saw it going in that direction.”

Steve paused. “What do you mean, weird?”

“Come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed how he looks at you. You’re in the room and it’s like no one else is there. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you watching him right back. I thought it was a rivalry thing, but now...”

Clint chuckled. “Hindsight is a bitch. You should have listened to Nat. She usually knows what she’s talking about.”

“Well, I didn’t think Captain America was in the market for a sugar daddy.” Sam bumped Steve’s shoulder.

Steve groaned. “Don’t even joke about that. Tony might take you seriously.”

“But it’s working out for you two?”

Steve blushed. “I want it to.”

  
  


Steve muted the comms line and took a deep breath of smoke-tinged air and let it out. There was a familiar clank as Tony landed on broken debris. Much of the base suffered damage in the attack, not all of it from the Avengers. Thankfully it seemed like the data center was still intact.

“Bruce is on the phone with Dr. Cho, they think they can treat the symptoms, but they can’t formulate a real cure for those people without knowing what was put into them in the first place,” Tony said, his voice sounding slightly tinny.

Steve turned to look at him. “Too bad the one guy who knows is long gone. Sam’s completely lost sight of him. He’s on his way back to help here.”

“Who knew the good doctor was such a slippery bastard?” Tony grumbled as he stepped out of the armor. He looked exhausted, slumping over.

Steve placed a steadying hand on Tony’s back. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t let Morbius slip through my fingers.”

“Hey, no one knew he could fly. The air team should have handled it. This is some crazy shit. All the mistakes of old extremis plus blood sucking. Were they trying to engineer a regenerative formula or just make exploding vampires?” Tony turned so that his head was resting on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve ran his fingers through Tony’s hair. “You should get some rest.”

“I’m fine, I just need a sec to recharge,” Tony mumbled into Steve’s uniform.

“You sure?”

“Of course.” Straightening up, Tony snapped his fingers and a thumb drive popped out of a compartment on the armor’s hip. He plugged it in to the computer bank. “What? You don’t think I can keep up?”

“I wouldn't doubt it for a second.”

After a few minutes and some computer wizardry, Tony said, “Okay, I’ve gotta take this data to the lab and start cracking that encryption.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Holding two mugs of steaming coffee, Steve peered into Tony’s lab through the glass. “JARVIS, is Tony in a meeting? It’s dark.”

[Mr. Stark has an urgent matter he is attending to. It will likely be a few days before he is available.]

Steve was taken aback. Earlier that morning, Bruce had reported that Tony got him the decrypted files and that they finally begun to synthesize a cure. However, Steve hadn’t seen Tony at all even though he usually could at least catch him on a coffee run.

Now he supposed he knew why. He understood that Tony sometimes had business emergencies he needed to deal with, but he would have expected him to at least tell Steve, especially now that they were in a relationship.

He wandered back to the common room, wondering what it all meant, if anything. He left the coffee on the counter and sunk into the couch.

“Something on your mind?” Nat asked, swiping one of the coffee mugs from the counter.

Steve shook his head. “No, it’s nothing.”

Nat gave Steve a good hard look. “Where’s Stark?”

“I haven’t seen him since the mission,” Steve said, trying to sound casual. “JARVIS said he’s going to be busy a few days.”

“I haven’t seen him either, but that’s not a surprise.” Bruce said as he investigated the remaining mug of coffee with dull eyes. Steve wondered if he’d gotten any sleep. “He’s been really busy with his latest projects. The R&D have been sending him a ton of projects for review.”

“He’s also had meetings for those new government contracts, prep work for that congressional hearing last week, and about twenty interviews. The PR department is running him hard,” Nat added. “You didn’t hear about it from him?”

“He’s busy. It’s not a big deal.” Steve knew about the hearing, but hadn’t heard a word about half the other stuff. How had Tony been managing all that, Avenging, and dates? Why didn’t he tell Steve? What else is he not saying?

Nat shook her head. “It’s not – unless this is a pattern. Are you guys saying the things you really need to?”

“We’ve barely been dating a week,” Steve said weakly.

Nat rested her hand on Steve’s arm. “It’s better to talk about it sooner rather than later.”

[There is a disturbance downtown. AIM and Dr. Morbius appear to be in conflict.]

  
  


When they get to the scene, Morbius had already made a bloody mess of AIM’s beekeepers and turned about half into his vampiric underlings. The streets contained a chaotic mess of bystanders fleeing, AIM’s remaining soldiers attempting to reorganize, and vampires attacking both indiscriminately.

A vampire leaped at Steve, fangs open wide, and Steve bashed him aside with his shield. The vampire crumbled to ash, as did any that Morbius turned.

Sam, Clint, and Natasha fell into providing cover for the evacuating civilians, while Hulk, Thor and Steve thinned out the enemies. There was no sign of him yet, but JARVIS informed them that Tony will join them soon. Steve hadn’t been sure Tony would be able to make such a sudden call.

Morbius rose above the crowd, his gaunt, bat-like face twisting into a snarl as he shouted, “I’ve had enough of you zealots! Your imbecilic leader, Tarleton, never really sought a cure, only to sell my mutation to the highest bidder.”

All at once the remaining vampires converged on AIM, pursuing them with single-minded focus.

Steve yelled, “Doctor! You don’t have to do this! Come quietly and we can get you the help you need!”

“Avengers!” Morbius spat, once more sending some of his vampires after them. “You fools are no better than AIM!”

The whine of Tony’s repulsors made Steve look up from the battle. Steve grinned at the sight of that red and gold armor, but his expression slowly morphed into a frown. Steve was far from an expert, but after years of fighting alongside Tony, he liked to think he has developed a good sense for how Tony moved – and something was off.

The turn that was just a little bit too slow, the blast that hadn’t quite been centered, and the odd radio silence: Steve didn’t like it. Then Iron Man took a hit and his movements went from awkward to downright erratic. The armor slammed into the ground.

Steve ran to his side pushing vampires and beekeepers out of his way.

“No – Tony! Tony!”

Steve found the release for the helmet and carefully removed it. Tony’s face was flushed with a thin sheen of sweat. His breathing was harsh and raspy, while his normally well-groomed beard had several days worth of growth. He looked up at Steve with unfocused eyes.

“St...eve...?” Tony’s eyes fell shut. 

  
  


Steve spent days next to Tony’s bed waiting for the fever to subside. The doctors said it was the flu and overwork. Tony ran himself too hard and never gave his body a chance to fight off the virus. They let him ride it out in his room at the tower, with supervision and check ins.

As soon as Tony’s eyes were open and he was lucid, the first words out of Steve’s mouth were, “Oh, thank god. I thought I lost you.”

Steve waited until the nurses had their way with Tony, checking him over and making sure he had something to eat and drink. “Why would you hide this from me? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Exhaustion was written clearly across Tony’s face as he answered, his voice a mere raspy whisper. “You can’t get sick. You’re already the peak of human perfection and I’m an aging playboy with a heart problem and decreased lung capacity. If you saw how a little virus could bring me down...”

Steve sat on the bed next to Tony and took his hand. “Tony, I might not get sick anymore, but I spent years in and out of the hospital with every damn illness that came within a mile of me. I can’t count how many times I got a cough and I thought that was going to be the one that finally killed me. If tomorrow I went back to that, would you think less of me?”

Tony shook his head. “No, of course not.”

“Then why would I think any less of you?”

“Because I wasn’t any good to begin with,” Tony croaked.

“That’s not true. You’re one of the best men I know. Do you think I would have fallen for you otherwise?”

Tony’s eyes widened, as if shocked by the confession, tears brimming.“You have bad taste in men.” He leaned against Steve, eyes beginning to flutter closed, and it felt like acceptance.

Steve laid back on the bed and pulled Tony closer so that his head was resting against Steve’s chest. “One good thing about not getting sick is that I can do this.”

Tony yawned. “Go ahead, rub it in.”

“Always.” Steve kissed Tony’s temple as he drifted off in Steve’s arms.


End file.
